Whole lotta posin' ... a competitor at The UK Air Guitar Championship 2006. Photograph: Linda Nylind
I can't help thinking that Channel 4 missed a trick with its recent series, Britain's Deadliest Addictions. Not to pooh-pooh the dangers of alcohol, mummy's little helpers or wisdom powder, but the worst, most powerful addiction in the world has managed to escape unchallenged. I speak of course of the habit of "air guitar", the practice where, upon hearing AC/DC's Highway To Hell or Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo in Michael Jackson's Beat It, adult men (mainly) will play along on an invisible instrument, faces contorted with concentration as if they're occupied attempting to crack the Enigma Code.
My name is Ian, and I am an air guitar addict.
Still, it could be worse. This week sees the release of Air Guitar Nation, a rockumentary that films wannabes competing in various invisible-plank-spank competitions all over the world. You read that correctly. Men onstage, dressed in spandex, cavorting wildly, putting so much effort into miming to an instrument that it would have been easier, surely, to have just learned in the first place.
Suddenly I feel much better about myself. These days I've managed to distil my habit down to a technique that can best be described as "air plectrum". If I'm at a gig my left hand has been liberated to do things that hands are supposed to - wave hello, carry a drink, even hold open a book. Meanwhile, hopefully out of sight, my right hand is busy strumming away in time to a riff being played from the stage. My thumb and index finger are placed together, as if holding an actual plectrum. I can't help it, I really can't. It's like a form of physical tourettes. "Hang on, shut up, I'll talk to you in a minute... this middle-eight bit is really tricky."
Call it car-crash cinema or a call to arms, Air Guitar Nation has really caught my imagination (an imagination which is already big enough for me to believe, whenever I hear Freebird, that I'm a member of Lynyrd Skynyrd). In the interests of full disclosure, I should say that my imagination is working two-steps removed. Not only am I imagining myself playing an imaginary guitar, but I'm imagining myself playing an imaginary guitar at an imaginary air guitar competition. Obviously I'm going to emerge as World Champion, I just need to nominate the songs I'd play along to.
Here are my top five choices.
1) Metallica, Battery 2) Soundgarden, Outshined 3) The Smiths, The Queen Is Dead (live version from Rank album) 4) AC/DC, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (special attention given to the orgasm-face-pulling solo) 5) Rush, Spirit Of Radio (to be played sober, widdly intro much trickier than it looks)
This blog is, of course, written for a special kind of person, and that "special" can mean whatever you want it to mean. But in this case I mean people who might imagine themselves doing the same thing, and people who like making lists. I would love to hear your nominations.
I would love for you to tell me that I'm not alone.
